Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh in 2000 and runs along the central Himalaya, from the Gangetic plain in the south to the Tibetan border in the north. The capital is Dehradun, with a summer secretariat at Gairsain. The state divides into the Garhwal hills in the west and Kumaon in the east.

The upper districts are steep and sparsely populated; the lower hills and the Terai belt along the plain are more settled and more agricultural. Horticulture — apples, peaches, plums — and tourism are the mainstays of the hill economy, along with a large number of hydroelectric projects on the Alaknanda, Bhagirathi and Yamuna. The Char Dham pilgrimage circuit, to Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, draws very large numbers of visitors each year.

The rivers that define the state have their origins here: the Bhagirathi emerges from the Gangotri glacier and joins the Alaknanda at Devprayag to form the Ganga. The terrain is young and unstable, and the state has seen repeated disaster — the 2013 Kedarnath floods, which killed thousands; the 2021 Chamoli flash flood; and the 2023 subsidence at Joshimath, where buildings cracked and families were relocated. Each has sharpened the argument about how much construction and dam building the hills can absorb.